‘YOU ARE GOD’S SIGNED ORIGINAL,’ LOGSDON SPEAKER ASSURES STUDENTS

And in all of creation, God has made only one version of each person, the speaker for this year’s Cornerstone Lecture Series at Hardin-Simmons University reminded students at a luncheon Sept. 20.

“You are God’s signed original,” said Delvin Atchison, director of the Great Commission Team for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Delvin Atchison

Atchison gave several lectures and held discussions with students and faculty during the lectureship held Sept. 19-21. He spoke on the theme, “God of the Amazing.”

Not only is God amazing, Atchison said at the student luncheon, he wants his people to be amazing, too. And that requires setting a goal and being tenacious enough to reach it. But getting there isn’t a solitary experience, Atchison promised.

“The God who made me fearfully and wonderfully,” Atchison said, “guides me and walks with me on my journey.”

In a question and answer session following his talk, Atchison was asked what he wanted to be when he was younger. He wanted to be an attorney, he said, but also started sensing that God was calling him to ministry when he was 12.

“I figured by the time I was grown, he’d give up,” Atchison said, but that didn’t happen.

Far from it. Atchison is former pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Waco, where he was vice president of the Waco Ministerial Alliance. He held his first preaching position at age 16. In his job with the BGCT, Atchison considers himself “a pastor’s pastor.” With 5,400 churches in the BGCT, that’s a lot of pastors to pastor.

A student at the luncheon asked Atchison what his best advice would be for a young pastor.

“Genuinely love people,” he said, “and see God in all of them.”

Atchison earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas and a master of divinity degree from the George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. He also holds an honorary doctorate of divinity degree from St. Thomas Christian College.